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None so reactionary as the tolerant Left

Tammy Bruce (bio) , an online talk-host, is an independent conservative and openly gay. For that seemingly odd mixture, she’s often found herself savagely attacked by people who used to be her allies when she was a liberal. In the UK’s left-leaning Guardian newspaper she talks about what it’s really like to be out, proud, and conservative:

Having made my point, I trust, I’ll now slip out of my snark suit and share a little secret with you. The real story of bigotry and intolerance is the fact that it lives and thrives on the left. As a gay woman who spent most of her adult life pushing the cart for liberal causes with liberal friends in a liberal city, I found that sexism, racism and homophobia are staples in the liberal world. The huge irony is liberals spend every ounce of energy promoting the notion that they are the banner carriers of individualism and personal freedom, yet the hammer comes down on anyone who dares not to conform to, or who dissents even in part from, the liberal agenda.

Think about what would happen if you did act up? If you dared to say you like Sarah Palin, or admire Margaret Thatcher, or think global warming is a hoax, or think Bill Clinton is a sexual predator, or that George W Bush isn’t to blame for everything, or that Barack Obama has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, you know there would be a price to pay. Odds are that your “liberal” friends would very liberally hate you. At the very least, being shunned would be your new experience, condemning you to suffer that horrific liberal malady called social death.

So, when it comes to my comfort level as a conservative who happens to be gay, here’s what I know: while many conservatives are people of faith and their religion promotes a very different point of view than mine on homosexuality (and a few other things!), I have found conservatives to be more tolerant, more curious and more understanding of those who are different to them than I ever did when ensconced in US liberal leadership.

It’s a good piece, and praise to the Guardian for being open-minded enough to carry it, something I doubt you’d find much of in the left-liberal mainstream media here in the US.

Reading some of the snarky comments on the Guardian web blog only adds to her argument. They were all ready to start finger pointing and comparing that liberals are not as extreme as conservatives…for various and sundry absurd reasons.

I wonder if any of them has ever had a true conversation with anyone who did not share their point of view. I think if they did they would pull and Whoopi/Joy moment and walk off in a huff.